Sure enough, Growler rolled his eyes. “Listen, baby-face...I know you're, like, two years old or whatever, an' you still believe in Santa Claus an' all that. You prob'ly even put milk an' cookies out for him last night. Fine. I'm fuckin' happy for you. But in here, we got laws, even if you ain't old enough to read 'em yet. An' those laws say no fuckin' Christmas crap in the Nest. Not now, not ever!”
Bard chuckled dryly in the corner. “Inter arma enim silent leges, Growler,” he intoned quietly.
“What, is that supposed to be fuckin' English?” Growler demanded. “Am I, havin' a fuckin' stroke over here, or what?”
Bard cleared his throat, lowering his newspaper. “Latin. Cicero. 'In times of war, the law falls silent.'”
“Oh. Yeah. War. Right. Fuck,” Growler grunted.
“Eloquent as always,” Bard said, smiling. “It's been a rough week for all of us, Growler. The kid wants the hat, let him keep the hat. He's not hurting anyone.”
Growler grumbled something under his breath about hurting someone.
“Thanks, Bard,” I said, tossing the bucket over to him. “Here, got some gold an' frankincense in there for ya. Play your cards right, maybe you'll get a little myrrh, too.”
“Hey, yer mother gave me a little myrrh last night!” Growler snickered.
“What a coincidence—your mother gave me a lot of herpes last night,” I answered smartly, causing the other Reapers to laugh. Growler waved a hand at me in mock disgust and returned to polishing the cloudy shot glasses with a grimy rag.
Bard shook the bucket next to his ear good-naturedly, hearing the meager handful of coins rattle inside. “Ahh, I can already picture the yacht this will buy, to say nothing of the mansion in Barbados. Truly, your largesse knows no bounds.”
“Hey, you wanna stick your nose up at free money, that's fine by me. Let me just yank a couple of quarters out of it, so I can put on some of those Abba songs Growler likes so much.”
“Eat me, fuck-rat,” Growler spat at me, provoking more laughter from the other guys.
I considered another snappy answer, then pocketed it. The banter felt forced tonight. Nothing felt funny after what had happened to Kong. It was odd, in a way. Kong had been gone for three years, so it wasn't like we were used to seeing him around. But then again, there was a big difference between knowing one of our own was doing a temporary stretch upstate and knowing he'd never come back again. Before he'd gotten busted, we'd shared a lot of good times together. I'd even stood up as best man at his second wedding. Now, I couldn't think of him without being haunted by images of hacksawed limbs, plastic tubs, and acid. It sucked, it wasn't fair, and it hurt like hell.
I looked at the Santa hat, considered trying it on for a laugh, but decided to toss it into the trash with the crumpled napkins and empty bottles instead. Growler's right. Fuck Christmas. I'm not in the mood. None of us are.
“Any word on the Bonaccorsos?” I asked, settling onto a bar stool as Growler poured me a shot of whiskey. I drank it down immediately, and Growler gamely poured another. “They fuck with anyone else yet, or am I the only lucky one?”
Bard raised his eyebrows and tossed the newspaper aside, joining me at the bar. “No, no one else has had any problems. What happened with you?”
“Vole came by my place, tried to scare me. Nothin' I couldn't handle, but still.”
“Well, that's...problematic, certainly,” Bard sighed. “Since we hadn't heard a peep out of them in the past couple of days, I was starting to hope they'd let this go, or at least give it a rest for the holidays. I mean, what with them being Catholics and all, I honestly didn't think that was too unrealistic an assumption. Wishful thinking, I suppose.”
I swallowed my second shot of whiskey, and gestured for Growler to pour me another. “Ever hear of the Ten Commandments?”
Bard nodded indulgently. “I seem to recall hearing something about them in passing, yes.”
“Uh-huh. Well, in the past year, Giovanni's stolen about twelve million dollars' worth of shit, he's lied on the witness stand in two different trials, he's fucked around on his wife with three different girlfriends, and he killed his own father by putting a bomb in his car. On a Sunday.
Oh, and last time I saw him, I'm, like, 99% sure I heard him take the Lord's name in vain, but he was speaking Italian, so I'm not as sure about that one. Still, that's nine of the Commandments right there, and for all I know, the fat fucking bastard has a golden calf stashed in his closet somewhere. So I wouldn't go betting the farm on Big G's Catholicism.”
Bard nodded, conceding my point. “So, how did you leave it with Vole, then?”
“On terms he'd understand. I pointed out that this whole goddamn thing had been a misunderstanding—and a stupid one, at that—and told him that if Giovanni doesn't start anything, there won't be anything.”
“Do you think it worked? Will they leave us alone?”
I shrugged, exhaled, and shook my head. “Probably not. Even if Vole delivers the message properly, which I doubt he will, Giovanni still can't afford to look weak in front of his soldiers after two of them croaked. That'll have the rest of them wondering how cheaply he values their lives, too, and he can't let that happen.”
Bard eyed me with an almost paternal approval. “I've never asked, Nic. Do you play chess?”
I snorted derisively. “Nah. I wouldn't be any good at it. I'm not smart like that.”
“You'd be better at it than you think, I'll bet,” he replied evenly. “So, where does that leave us, then?”
I thought it over for a long moment. “Well, staying here probably isn't too smart, right? They know where we are. They can send six carloads of guys with machine guns and wipe out anyone inside, or just bomb it straight to hell.”
“But they won't, because Giovanni would never give that order.”
I barked out a harsh laugh. “Oh? Why is that? Are you banking on his Catholicism again? Did the Vatican issue an edict this week about not blowing up bars full of bikers?”
Bard smiled. “Well, that would be awfully nice of them, not to mention oddly specific, but no. Think about it, Nic. The Nest is the one place he knows we'll be, most of the time. He shoots it up, he blows it up, and sure, he's liable to take out at least a third of us at any given time. The problem is, he knows that after that, the rest of us will scatter, go to ground, and he doesn't know where. It's not like most of us have family members we're close to, or any real connections he could use to trace us. Giovanni knows there'd be nothing left for him to do but wait for our next move without knowing where it'll come from or what it'll look like, and hope it won't be too bloody. He's too smart for that, and too big on neatness and preparation to be comfortable with it.”
Before he could continue, a Reaper named Sperm—a shaggy, hippie-looking kid in his early twenties, who wore a beaded headband and a wisp of a mustache—stumbled in, clearly shitfaced. He was wearing a green elf hat with pointy plastic ears attached, and had pointy-toed elf shoes stretched over his boots.
“I wanna be a dentist!” he shrieked triumphantly, and then puked on the floor.
“Fucking hell. Am I the only who gives a goddamn about the rules anymore?” Growler roared. He gestured to two prospects. “You an' you! Take that maggot out the door, before I chuck 'im out the window!”
The prospects stepped around Sperm, lifting him by his arms and carrying him out as he slurred, “Show me your teeth!”
Bard grimaced at the interruption, took another sip of his rum and cola, and continued. “And consider this, too—most of Giovanni's business involves maintaining his relationships with cops, judges, and the State's Attorney, to name a few. Maybe they can sweep a few quiet murders under the rug, but a whole building getting shot apart or blown up, even in Rogers Park, will attract too much attention. It'll look sloppy, it'll get headlines, it'll be one more glaring example of 'crime run amok in the Windy City,' and it'll make sure all of his political connections run for the hills. No, Giovanni will keep the Nest right where it is, so he can keep an eye on us when he needs to. And when he does strike, it'll be precise. Surgical.”
I grimaced. “Swell. Thanks for cheering me up. So what's the plan?”
“Well, for starters,” Bard said, finishing his drink and swirling the ice cubes around in the glass pensively, “we can't have any more go-betweens, least of all Vole. We know he can't say anything to Giovanni that will make us sound reasonable, because that will only highlight the fact that this entire debacle was his fault. At best, he'll lose the rank of capo. At worst, his cousin will turn him into fish food.”
“Heh. Do they still do that?” I asked. “You know, the whole sleeps-with-the-fishes thing?”
“They're big on tradition,” Bard smirked. “And we can't let you be involved in the negotiations directly because chances are Giovanni will know you were the one who killed one of his people. It seems like the only way this can end without total eradication is if I arrange a meeting with Giovanni himself.”
“You think you can reach out to him without getting your hand chopped off?”